While In Spain
by windedeagle
Summary: Jesse and Suze become fast friends. But can Suze give him up for Maria? AU. JS. :


I stepped out of the terminal and into the airport.

Okay, I thought. No biggie. I was just in a huge airport with a bunch of strangers . . .

. . . Who all speak Spanish.

But no biggie. I could so handle it. I mean, I was here. Here as a foreign exchange student.

Well, kind of. It _was_ summer. But I had decided to come early, to kind of learn the culture . . . and the language. I kind of was lacking on the whole Spanish lingo.

But hey. I was Suze Simon. I could do it.

Seeing my bag at the luggage carousel was a relief. I quickly grabbed it up. All my other clothes had been sent Fed Ex.

I turned to look out the airport doors, lost. It looked like the outside of every other airport . . . cabs lined up the sidewalk, people in business suits rolling their bags along, checking their e-mail on their Blackberries. Families and friends embracing before they got into their Suburbans. (Who knew they had Suburbans in Spain? I sure didn't.)

I was about to pull out my cell phone and call my mom, but I felt a light tapping on my shoulder. I turned . . .

. . . to look into the most beautiful pair of liquid-black eyes I had ever seen.

"Are you Susannah?" the perfect mouth asked, followed by a perfect smile.

I nodded and looked at the six-feet-two-inches of hunk in front of me.

Perfect thick black hair. Model face. Black polo over muscular torso. Light-wash jeans over a tone butt. Italian shoes . . .

I could eat him with a spoon.

"I'm Jesse. Jesse de Silva." He stuck out his big, tanned hand. I shook it.

"I'm Suze. But you knew that."

"Suze?" he said. It sounded stretched out and strange under his accent. "I like Susannah better. Let me take your bag."

I followed him out to his car - a Lexus RX 300. Who knew they had Lexus' in Spain? I thought they all drove sports cars.

_How do I not know this guy's a rapist?_ I thought when I buckled up. _How do I not know he's not going to take me to some old abandoned fish shack and kill me?_

Jesse smiled at me. "Ready?" he asked.

I nodded. Because they just don't make rapists with smiles like that.

7777

"So," Jesse finally broke the silence. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"Three step brothers." I looked at my phone - no service. "What about you? Don't you have a sister?"

He smiled. "I have five sisters, actually."

_Five?_ Oh my God.

Jesse was a good small talk maker - he asked me about home in California, about my family, what kind of music liked, stuff like that.

I answered them all, too. He could have written a criticism on my character by the time we pulled past the massive black gates in front of his house - one with a D, one with a S.

His house was three times the size of mine. It looked like it was built entirely out of stone, and had ivy growing up all the walls. From the top of the driveway you could see miles of farmland behind it, as well as a small lake.

"What do you grow?" I blurted out, astonished.

Jesse shrugged. "A little of everything."

We pulled to the front of the house, where Jesse parked. I got my things together - purse, phone, iPod - and went to help him get my suitcase out of the trunk . . .

. . . But was attacked by a little girl first.

She was saying something over and over in Spanish while she hugged my leg. I looked over at Jesse, who was smiling.

Another girl - well, she looked a little older than me - came and pulled the little girl off.

"Excuse her," the older girl said. "She just doesn't know how to contain herself." She scolded the little girl in Spanish, then let her go. The girl ran off.

"I'm Marta," the older girl said. "Jesse's sister."

"Oh, um, nice to meet you."

She smiled. Her face was as perfect as Jesse's, and she had long black curls that hung past her shoulders. She was thin - her shorts showed off muscular legs and her shirt strong arms.

"This," she said, turning to the crowd of people that had gathered on the stairs, "is our family."

Jesse came up with my bag. An older woman - but she was still beautiful - walked down the steps and embraced me. "Welcome, Susannah," she said. This must have been the mother.

"Um, thanks," I said.

Jesse introduced his sisters. "Marta here is twenty-one. That is Josafina, she is eighteen. Mercedes is sixteen, Abigail is twelve, Daniela is ten, and little Isidora," he nodded to the attack daughter, "is six."

Isidora said something to Jesse, and he smiled. "Issy says she will be seven next week. She doesn't know much English."

Jesse's mother cleared her throat, and Jesse put an arm around her shoulder. "Of course. How could I forget? My mother, Inmaculada."

I stared, and his mother laughed. "You can call me Ema," she said.

"And our father is at the buyer's market in Barcelona," Marta said. "He will be back for dinner." She took my arm. "Do you want to see your room? All your things came yesterday."

"Um, sure."

Everyone but Jesse, Marta, and Ema disappeared. Ema asked Marta if we would be alright by our selves, and Marta said we would.

The house was as beautiful on the inside as it was on the outside. Everything was marble, leather, and silver, and you could have eaten off the floors, they were so clean.

I was like the Barbie dream house - only the ones you see on TV. Mine got pretty disastrous after I decided Barbie and Ken should have a hot tub party.

"Now," Marta said when we started up the stairs. "We have ten rooms, two living rooms, fourteen bathrooms, and one very large kitchen. We also have a . . ." She turned to Jesse. "What is it called? I can only remember the French word . . ."

"Swimming pool?" he asked.

"Yes, that's it! A pool. As well as a stable. Do you like to ride horses?"

We stopped in front of a wooden door - Marta opened it to reveal a large bedroom with a bay window and a four-poster black bed. There was also a TV tucked into the corner, and a bathroom and closet directly off of it.

"Horses? No." I had had a traumatic experience in Central Park one time.

"We'll teach you. Jesse, put that on the bed," she said, meaning my suitcase. Jesse did.

Marta let go of me and opened it. I went to the windows and looked out instead.

Marta was going on about horses when Jesse came to me and put his hand on my back. Where his fingers touched felt like fire.

"She likes to talk. Just tell her to be quiet if she gets to be too much," he said quietly. I smiled into his warm black eyes. I could smell him from here - a mixture of clean clothes and some kind of expensive cologne. Not too much, just enough.

"Okay."

"I'll see you later," he promised, and left, but not before telling Marta something in Spanish. She mumbled something back that was dripping with venom.

I could already tell one thing - don't cross Marta.

She pulled a red dress from my suitcase. "I think we might be the same size."

I shrugged and started pulling out and refolding clothes. "I wear a four. Or a six."

"I think that's about the same as a thirty-two." She went into my closet (walk-in, by the way) and hung it up.

We spent the better part of the hour unpacking, then Marta asked if I wanted to go to the pool and lay out. I said sure and changed into my suit. Marta had hers on under her clothes.

The pool could be considered Olympic-sized, only it had a waterfall. The deck around it had a dozen lounge chairs and a tiki-bar.

Josafina was in the water when we came up, but she quickly got out and came sat with us at one of the three tables.

"Are you in collage?" I asked Marta.

She adjusted the strap on her blue bikini and nodded. "My fourth year. Is this your last year of high school?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'm a senior."

Josafina balked. "You haven't graduated?"

I shook my head.

"Jose, things are different in America."

Josafina smiled at me. "I would hate to live there. I'm going into collage next year."

The way she said _hate to live there_ brought up my sense of patriotism. "It's not so bad," I mumbled, then asked, "What about Jesse?"

"Jesse has another year of medical school," she said.

"Medical school?" He was going to be a doctor? That translated into any language.

MONEY.

"Yeah," Marta said. "Papa wasn't too happy about it. But Jesse held his ground."

If I faked a heart attack, would Jesse have to take off my shirt? I mean, to feel for an accurate heart beat, and all. He would, wouldn't he?

"So where do you go to school around here?" I asked.

"Not here," Marta said. "In the city. Jesse and I share an apartment."

"So you're just visiting for the summer?"

Marta looked at her sister, then said, "I guess you could say that."

But I saw that look! They were up to something . . .

Josafina said something to Marta, and Marta sighed. "I guess we should," she mumbled, then she looked at me. "Well, you see, Jesse's here because . . . he's getting married."

WHOA.

And he flirted with me! He totally put his hand on my back and flirted with me!

"You see," Marta explained, leaning in, "Father is still angry at Jesse for going to medical school, so he is making him fulfill a promise he made to our neighbors - and cousins - when Jesse was born, that he would marry one of our female cousins. He says he signed a, um, what do you call it?"

"Contract?"

"Yes, yes, a contract. That Jesse has to marry Maria. Only Jesse doesn't want to. He doesn't like Maria. But father is making him anyways."

I gulped. But . . . but . . . my summer had such hope! "When is the wedding?" I asked.

"A month today. I can't wait until you meet Maria. She is such a . . ."

Marta spit out another one of those venom words, and Josafina laughed.

"Does that mean skank?" I asked.

"Sh, here he comes," Marta hissed back.

I turned in my seat to see Jesse - or maybe some kind of Spanish god - descending the stairs, only wearing a very clean pair of white swim trunks.

I know! White! You could probably see strait through them once they were wet!

He smiled at us when he walked up to our table, then, his face dropping, said something to Marta. The oldest sister looked angry all of the sudden and snapped something back.

Jesse shrugged helplessly, then asked, "What are you girls up to? Gossiping?" He smiled down at me.

"We would never do that," I said, trying to be cute. I must have looked it - Jesse flushed a little under his incredible tan.

"Well, I'm just going for a little swim. Mother said to be ready for dinner at six."

I watched him go to the far end of the pool and jump in. "What did he say to you?" I asked.

Marta sighed. "Maria is coming in two weeks to stay with us."

7777

Dinner in the de Silva household was a reason to dress up. You couldn't come rolling in fresh out of your shower in boxers and a tee like at my house.

No, this was a re-powder-your-nose pull-up-your-hair kind of deal.

Marta came to my room and told me what to wear (really, she did tell me. And she stole one of my pairs of jeans in the process), then led me to dinner in the family's massive dinning room.

I was expecting what I thought was "Spanish" food - tacos, cheese dip, margaritas. But instead I was served some kind of chicken with wine sauce, a fresh salad, mushrooms, and snails.

Seriously.

I looked at Jesse, who I was sitting by. He had been watching me carefully, and smiled when our eyes met.

"Our chef is French," he explained. He reached over to the plate of snails and put one on my plate. "They are not so bad, I promise."

He showed me how to dig the little bit of meat (if you could call it meat) out of the shell and then held the fork to my mouth.

I looked around. No one else was watching. No one else was even speaking English, actually.

I let him slid the fork into my mouth, then swallowed before my gag reflexes kicked in.

"How was it?" he asked after I had swallowed.

"It tasted like an oyster."

"An oyster? You eat _oysters_ in America?"

I nodded.

"No that," he said, getting himself another snail, "is gross."

I laughed. "Compared to a snail? Snails live in like, Dumpsters, okay? At least oysters live in the ocean."

He smiled at me. "But oysters make pearls . . . How could you eat that?"

I rolled my eyes. "_Dumpsters_, Jesse. Snails live in _Dumpsters_."

"Hector," we heard from the other end of the table. I looked up into Jesse's father's eyes.

His dad said something in Spanish. Jesse nodded and looked down. The conversation around the table went back to normal.

"What did he say?" I asked.

Jesse turned so he was just barely looking a me and smiled. "We were being too loud."

7777

After dinner Marta asked if I had any good movies.

"Um, yeah," I said. "I have a few of my favorites."

"Like what?" she asked. Jesse was listening too.

"Um, ever seen _The Notebook_?"

I know. It's like the sappiest movie ever. But I still loved it - Abby, Noah, the old white house . . .

. . . We all three piled up in Marta's bed - Jesse on the far end, Marta in the middle, me on the other end - and watched it. We all cried too. Well, Jesse swears he didn't. But Marta and I both saw.

"It was wonderful," Marta said when it was over. Jesse was already making his way to the door. "We'll have to watch another one tomorrow."

I took my movie and, after saying goodnight to Marta, followed Jesse into the hall. His room was directly across from mine.

"Did you like the movie?" I asked with a smile. He rolled his eyes.

"Yes, Susannah. I liked it."

"Good." We came to our doors and stopped. "I promise tomorrow's won't be so sappy."

He smiled. "I hope so, _querida_." As soon as he had the Spanish word out of his mouth he said goodnight and fled to his room.

"Night," I called after him.

I wondered if he wanted to get married.

_please R/R_


End file.
